About

This blog is a WorkInProgress, hence the title. The intent of this blog is to help lawyers and legal professionals understand that “open source” is more than just an intellectual property topic, and to give them tools to realize the benefit of using open source applications in their practices. You don’t have to be a programmer or computer scientist to get the benefit of open source apps. All you need is a little nudge, and a little guidance down the path.

About the Author

Gwynne Monahan is the Founder and Chief Consultant of Shadow Froggy Consulting. It started as an independent project geared toward educating the legal community on the practical uses of open source applications. Conversations with classmates, professors and other business-minded people led her to form a company.

Gwynne has presented on open source for lawyers to the Chicago Bar Association, and has written articles for such legal journals as the Texas Bar Journal and Law Technology Today.

She also founded Lawyer Connection, a Ning social networking site she created to help connect laid off lawyers with each other. She got the idea from a series of tweets, and when Victoria Pynchon suggested creating a Ning network, Gwynne jumped right on it. The social network caught the attention of the ABA Journal, which published a Side Bar about Lawyer Connection in its August issue (scroll to the bottom of the Web page to see the Side bar).

Gwynne has taught undergraduate courses in technical communication at Chicago’s International Academy of Design and Technology.

In addition to her passion for open source education, she also does freelance writing and editing, research, project management, SEO/SEM, website content development and migration and basic website development.

She is a Chicago native, baseball fanatic and life-long Cubs fan. She writes short fiction in her spare time, and remains a consumer of knowledge.

Gwynne Monahan, thanks so much for finding “The Wal-Mart Effect,” and thanks for the shout-out on Twitter. I don’t Twitter, because I’m deep into my next book, but I appreciate you giving your huge reader-base a head’s up. Wal-Mart is powering through the downturn, which is a fascinating development. They’ll emerge with more power and influence than before.

Wow. Mr. Fishman himself! You’re welcome. Wal-Mart is one of a handful of companies that fascinates me, so I read everything I can get my hands on related to it. You’re book still remains the most even-handed out one there. It helps bring perspective to the ones at either end of the spectrum. I look forward to reading your next book!